Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Teamsters send Jobs Not Cuts message on ground, in cyberspace

Teamsters International VP Al Mixon leads a Jobs Not Cuts rally in Cleveland.

Teamsters today sent a message to Congress that Americans want jobs, not cuts to Social Security, Medicare and education.

Our brothers and sisters joined rallies around the country and participated in the biggest political Thunderclap in history. (Thunderclap is a new website that lets people to pledge to Tweet or Facebook a message all at the same time on the same day in order to achieve the maximum effect.) A total of 5,977 people sent the "Jobs Not Cuts" message to more than 1,869,096 Facebook and Twitter connections.

The coalition was a little disappointed we didn't reach a national "trending" status on Twitter, but we did familiarize our members with Thunderclap. No doubt we'll be Thunderclapping again.

And Teamsters were on the ground in rallies at Congressional district offices and Social Security offices all over the country. We're still waiting for photos to come in, but we know Cleveland Teamsters rallied downtown with their brothers and sisters from AFGE. Minneapolis Teamsters were out today in sub-freezing temperatures. Cincinnati Teamsters helped distribute hundreds of flyers in front of the Social Security Administration office.

Today's message was reinforced by the news that the U.S. economy shrunk because of cuts in government spending. Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa issued a statement, saying:

Today we learned that the U.S. economy is shrinking due to a fall in government spending. That should tell us that government austerity is not just wrong, it’s bad economic policy.

The Bureau of Economic Affairs’ announcement that GDP fell by 0.1 percent reinforces our message that we need jobs, not cuts – especially to Social Security, Medicare and education.

Teamsters around the country are participating in actions today to demand that big corporations and the richest 2 percent pay their fair share of taxes. I hope extremists in Congress pay attention to their message that Americans need jobs, not cuts.